SOURCE: “Genesis 2-3: A Story of Liberation,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, No. 55, September, 1992, pp. 3-13.

In the following essay, Dragga surveys the assumptions that typically color one's understanding of the Adam and Eve story. Dragga argues that when these assumptions and their connotations are revealed and understood, the story may be viewed as one of the liberation of humans, rather than one of their fall.

Genesis 2-3 is typically characterized as a tragic narrative of human failure and disgrace. This perspective, however, assumes that the human couple of the narrative is procreative prior to their act of disobedience, that the serpent who elicits their disobedience has malicious motivations, that the disobedience of the man and woman is disastrous, that the creator of the human couple is omnipotent, and that the removal of the man and woman from the garden of their creator constitutes a...